Yala National Park, Sri Lanka‘s most famous wildlife destination, is facing a conservation crisis as overcrowding and speeding safari jeeps increasingly threaten its wildlife, particularly its famed leopards, reports Mongabay contributor Kamanthi Wickramasinghe. Block I of the park, which boasts of one of the world’s highest leopard densities at one animal per square kilometer (2.6 per square mile), attracted […]
Tag: leopards
‘The leopard was crouched 3m away, its golden eyes locked on mine. What happened next is still a blur’
We took the bridge over the River Khwai. A phalanx of firewood rattled in the back of the beat-up Land Rover. Sardined beside it, my siblings nattered and quibbled. It was 2012 and we were a full-house family – two adults, three children – eight weeks and two breakdowns into a self-drive safari sabbatical. Travelling […]
War on Iran disrupts efforts to save the Asiatic cheetah, world’s rarest big cat
Before the war began in February 2026, there was some rare good news for Iran‘s imperiled Asiatic cheetahs. Rangers spotted and filmed a female in the North Khorasan province accompanied by five cubs — a first. No more than four had ever been seen before, and every individual counts. The Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) is the world’s most […]
A South African reserve shows how carbon can catalyze rewilding conservation
TSWALU KALAHARI RESERVE, South Africa — From high on a promontory in the Korannaberg Mountains, a mountain zebra (Equus zebra hartmannae) peers down to the west across the green-dappled plain below, the sun rising behind. In the distance, wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) hunt in the veld, verdant after early rains. And nearby, white rhinos (Ceratotherium […]
The mind-controlling zombie that makes our closest cousins seek out their own killers… and it could affect humans too
In 2016 scientists found a parasite is able to manipulate the behaviour of its chimpanzee hosts, making them morbidly attracted to the odour of their only natural predator. Toxoplasma gondii is a tiny single-celled cat parasite that also infects a range of other mammals and birds as intermediate hosts, forming cysts in their brains and other […]
Watch agonising BBC footage of deadly crocodiles attacking animals oblivious to the danger not once, but twice… You will be yelling at the screen
Watch incredible BBC footage of wildebeests at the water’s edge going back into crocodile-infested waters, narrated by David Attenborough The wildebeest migration of the Serengeti-Masai Mara ecosystem is an incredible natural event, where over 1.4 million wildebeest, alongside zebra and antelope, travel hundreds of miles together, stopping when they can to drink along the way. It’s at […]
Endangered Persian Leopards Mount Comeback in Central Asia’s Most Reclusive Nation
Last year, a broad network of camera traps in western Turkmenistan was broadened in the hopes of better understanding the populations of an Endangered leopard subspecies. Powered by a Washington, DC conservation financier, from a country whose citizens are rarely allowed to visit Turkmenistan, the survey produced positive results. There are now an estimated 60-80 […]
They strike with clenched talons at 200mph, crush skulls, shred prey, and can inflict deep head wounds on humans – 10 deadliest birds of prey on the planet
They can strike their victims with clenched talons at a devastating 200mph, casually crush a monkey’s skull in their claws, tear a large fish apart in seconds and inflict deep wounds on the heads of humans they see as a threat. Deadliest birds of prey Harpy Eagle The magnificent harpy eagles of Central and South […]